A
completely new phase in the evolution of life on Earth has
begun.It will
change everything.

In
this new phase evolution will be driven intentionally, by
humanity.The
evolutionary worldview
that emerges from an understanding of our role in the new phase has the
potential
to transform the nature of human existence.

At
present humanity is lost.We don’t know what we are doing here.We are without a worldview that can point to
our place and purpose in
the universe and that can also withstand rational scrutiny.

But
this difficult period is coming to an end.The emergence of the new evolutionary
worldview is beginning to lift us out of the abyss.The new worldview has a unique capacity to
reveal who we are and what we should be doing with our lives.It relies solely on
scientific knowledge and
reason to identify our critical role in future evolution.The evolutionary worldview
can unite us in a
great common enterprise, and provide meaning and purpose for human
existence.

At
the heart of the evolutionary worldview is the fact that
evolution has a trajectory—it heads in a particular direction.However, evolution on
Earth will not advance
beyond a certain point unless it is driven consciously and
intentionally.If
this transition to intentional evolution
does not occur, evolution on this planet will stall, and humanity will
not
contribute positively to the future evolution of life in the
universe—we will
be a failed evolutionary experiment.

It
is as if evolution is a developmental process.Just as a human embryo is organized to develop
through a number of stages to produce an adult, evolution tends to
produce a particular
sequence of outcomes of increasing complexity.Initially, evolution moves in this direction
of its own accord.However,
at a particular point evolution will
continue to advance only if certain conditions are met: organisms must
emerge
that awaken to the possibility that they are living in the midst of a
developmental
process; they must realize that the continued success of the process
depends on
them; and they must commit to actively moving the process forward.

Across
the planet at the beginning of the twenty first
century, individuals are beginning to realize the importance of the
transition
to intentional evolution.They
know that
they themselves have a significant role to play if the transition is to
be completed
successfully.

This
role requires them to promote the new evolutionary worldview
that will drive the transition.It
also
calls on them to begin to remake themselves and their societies in
whatever
ways are necessary to advance the evolutionary process.Their efforts, powered by the capacity of the
evolutionary worldview to invest their lives with direction and
purpose, will bring
forth a great wave of evolutionary activism that will change life on
this
planet forever.

Evolutionary
activists use the trajectory of evolution to
identify what they need to do to advance evolution.Socially, the next great step in human
evolution is the emergence of a unified and sustainable global society.Psychologically, the next
step is to free our
behavior from the dictates of our biological and cultural past, so that
we can
do that which is necessary for future evolutionary success.

The
organization of a cooperative global society is an urgent
priority.With it,
the threats of world
war and global warming can be easily managed.Without it, human civilization may end this
century.

The Evolutionary
Manifesto is an intentional attempt to promote the shift to
conscious evolution
and the evolutionary activism that will drive it.To read, discuss and circulate the Manifesto is to participate in a great
evolutionary transition on this planet.

Part
1 of the Manifesto
provides an overview of the shift to intentional evolution and of the
worldview
that is motivating individuals to actively promote the transition.Parts 2 and 3 begin by
identifying the
trajectory of evolution and showing that its directionality is produced
by
processes that are fully understandable within mainstream science,
without
resort to teleology or mysticism.They
go on to use the trajectory of evolution to identify the agendas that
guide evolutionary
activists in their attempts to advance the evolutionary process.In particular, Part 2
deals with our future
social evolution and Part 3 with the future evolution of our
adaptability,
intelligence and creativity.

Part 4 of the Manifesto
explores the power of the evolutionary worldview to provide meaning and
direction for human existence. It demonstrates
the capacity of the worldview to make evolutionary activism the most
significant political force on the planet.
In particular, it shows that philosophical arguments such as the
‘naturalistic fallacy’ do not diminish the force of the evolutionary
worldview
presented by the Manifesto.

The shift to
intentional
evolution

The shift to intentional
evolution has begun on Earth.The
evolutionary process itself is
evolving.It is
transitioning from a
process that stumbles forward blindly to one that advances consciously
and
intentionally.

Hitherto on Earth,
evolution proceeded largely by trial and
error.The
processes that produced
mutations were not guided by foresight or by any intention to advance
evolution.

The same applies to the
processes that drive human cultural
evolution.When we
humans make
scientific discoveries, technological advances, or institute new forms
of
social organization, we are not consciously attempting to advance the
evolutionary
process.Thus far
in our evolution we do
not intentionally design improvements so that they will be successful
in
evolutionary terms.

In contrast, if the
transition to conscious evolution is
successful, evolution on Earth will henceforth proceed deliberately and
intelligently.Life
on Earth, including
human societies, will be made and remade continually with the explicit
intent
of advancing the evolutionary process.Human nature, culture, technology and social
systems, as well as the
other living processes on the planet, will all be shaped intentionally
so that
they contribute positively to the further evolution of life in the
universe.

This transition will
increase enormously the ability of the
evolutionary process to adapt and innovate to meet whatever challenges
are faced
by life on this planet in the future.What might take trial and error many thousands
of millions of years to
discover can be developed almost instantly by intelligent evolution.In a few centuries, human
technology has produced
innovations such as heavier-than-air flight that took past evolution
millions
of generations of genetic trial and error to accomplish.

But the significance of
this transition goes far beyond merely
improving the effectiveness of adaptation to existing circumstances.It will also enable life
on Earth to identify
what it can do to contribute productively to the future evolution of
life in
the universe.Life
on Earth will be able
to envision a creative and meaningful role for itself in future
evolution, and
use the vision to guide its actions and its future development.

Life on Earth will never
be the same.

The potential for the
evolutionary process to ‘awaken’ in
this way has arisen because of the emergence on the planet of organisms
that
are conscious and highly intelligent—humanity.We have the capacity to pursue our goals
deliberately and consciously—we
use planning, foresight, anticipation and intent.To the extent that we begin to use our
intelligence to advance the evolutionary process intentionally,
evolution
itself will be powered by intelligence.Human creativity will drive the advancement of
the evolutionary process
on Earth.

Importantly, this would
not only mean that humanity will
evolve intelligently.Increasingly,
humanity is managing and adapting the other processes on the planet,
living and
non-living, for our own ends.If
humanity embraces evolutionary goals, it will therefore mean that the
living
and non-living processes of the planet are also managed and adapted
intelligently
for evolutionary ends.

Because of the central
role of innovation in evolution,
humanity will also set out to enhance the creativity of the
evolutionary
process.This will
mean improving our
own capacity to innovate as well as the creativity of the systems we
are
embedded in.Understanding
and utilizing
creative processes such as emergence and collective intelligence will
be
priorities.

If this major evolution
transition is completed successfully,
humans will henceforth shape their societies, themselves, and all other
living
processes on the planet to serve evolutionary goals. Through humanity,
the
evolutionary process on Earth will have become conscious of itself, and
will have
acquired the capacity to advance itself intentionally and consciously.It will have undergone a
fundamental and
extremely significant transformation.Evolution will have transitioned from a
process that groped its way
forward by trial and error to one that strides knowingly into the
future,
guided by foresight and powered by consciousness.

Humans who are alive
during the 21st century,
13.7 billion years of evolution after the ‘big bang’, are
extraordinarily
fortunate.The
shift to intentional evolution
is one of the most significant evolutionary transitions that can occur
on any
planet on which life emerges.We
have
the unique opportunity to contribute to its successful completion on
this
planet.And if we
choose to make this
contribution, we will do so consciously—we will be aware that we are
contributing intentionally to the successful completion of a pivotal
evolutionary
event on this planet.

The emergence of
intentional
evolutionaries

As the transition begins,
individuals are emerging who are
choosing to dedicate their lives to advancing the evolutionary process.

These intentional
evolutionaries recognize that they have a
critical role to play in driving the evolutionary transition and the
future
evolution of life.Their
lives can be an
important part of the great evolutionary process that has produced the
universe
and life within it.They
know that if
evolution is to continue to fulfill its potential, it now must be
driven deliberately,
and it is their responsibility and destiny to contribute to this.

Their conscious
participation in the evolutionary process is
increasingly becoming the source of value and meaning in their lives.Redefining themselves
within a wider
evolutionary perspective is providing direction and purpose to their
existence—they
no longer see themselves as isolated, self-concerned individuals who
live for a
short time, then die irrelevantly in a meaningless universe.

Intentional
evolutionaries are energized by the knowledge
that their decision to embrace this role is part of the unfolding of
the great
transition itself.They
see that they
are contributing to the success of processes much larger than
themselves that
will outlast them and potentially live forever.They know that if they live their lives
incompatibly with the processes
that govern the evolution of life in the universe, their lives will not
have
any longer-term relevance.They
will die
without leaving a lasting trace.

For intentional
evolutionaries at the leading edge of the
transition, their commitment is a major act of existential
self-assertion.It
is not a choice that they are predisposed
to make by their genetic make-up, nor by the society in which they were
raised.It is a
commitment that they can
make only after developing some psychological distance from the goals
and
perspectives of their culture, and only after achieving a deep
understanding of
their relationship with the evolutionary process.

Intentional
evolutionaries are aware that they have set
themselves an extraordinarily challenging task, but know the transition
cannot
be completed unless sufficient individuals commit themselves to it.And if life on Earth does
not make the
transition, it will not participate in the future evolution of life in
the
universe.It will
be a failed
evolutionary experiment.Intentional
evolutionaries
know the deepest evolutionary meaning of the challenge: “If not now,
when?And if not
you, who?”.

The allegiance of
conscious evolutionaries is not to what
is, but to what can be.They
know that they
are alive at one of those rare times in history when an old phase is
ending,
and a new one of infinite possibility is beginning.They have the courage and wisdom to seize
their
opportunity and to accept the challenge of the future.

Intentional
evolutionaries know that they have much in
common with all others who consciously adopt evolutionary goals,
including those
that emerge elsewhere in the universe.Intentional
evolutionaries experience a deep connection and kinship with all who
awaken to
the significance of evolutionary consciousness, even if they never have
any
direct contact with them.They
are
united because they know that despite many difference, they share
common
perspectives, worldviews, goals and conscious experiences.They are bound together as
members of the circle
of conscious life in the universe.

The goals of
intentional evolutionaries

The goals and objectives
of intentional evolutionaries are
guided by a comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary processes
that have
produced life on this planet and that will determine its future.They are aware of how past
evolution has
shaped all aspects of their being—their bodies, motivations, values and
thinking—and how it has shaped humanity’s economic, social and
religious systems,
as well as all the other living processes on the planet.But even more importantly,
they also have a
deep understanding of the evolutionary processes that will unfold in
the future
and will ultimately determine the relevance of their lives.

For intentional
evolutionaries, this understanding of future
evolution is indispensable—it points to how life on Earth must remake
itself if
it is to participate successfully in the future evolution of life in
the
universe.It also
identifies the types
of living processes that will not survive future evolution.It shows how life on Earth
needs to change
now if it is to play a significant role as evolution advances.

The direction of
evolution

The task of identifying
what will work in the future is made
easier because evolution has a trajectory.It has headed in particular directions in the
past, and there is every
reason to believe that it will continue to do so in the future.It is possible to locate
humanity and life on
Earth on this trajectory, and to see what needs to happen if we are to
continue
to advance along its path.

Not only does this
understanding emphasize that humanity and
life on Earth is evolutionary work-in-progress, it also enables
intentional evolutionaries
to identify the next great milestones in the evolutionary process on
Earth.These
milestones are the evolutionary goals
and objectives that they deliberately choose to pursue.They point to how individuals would live
their lives if they are to contribute to the advancement of evolution.They are the lights on the
distant hills that
draw us forever onwards.

The trajectory of
evolution is not produced by an external
force, or by some impulse that is intrinsic to the universe, or by an
ideal
end-point that somehow attracts evolution towards it.Directionality can be explained and
understood fully without resort to mysticism.

For intentional
evolutionaries, scientific explanations have
a major advantage.They
identify the forces,
processes and conditions that produce directionality.Scientific understanding can therefore be
used to work out the kinds of interventions that will advance the
process.In
contrast, a readiness to accept mystical explanations
can be counterproductive—it can impede the acquisition of the detailed
evolutionary understanding that is essential to guide intentional
evolution.

Life tends to evolve in a
particular direction simply
because there are particular capacities that provide organisms with
evolutionary
advantage across a wide range of circumstances.Irrespective of the specifics of the organism
or its environment, these capacities
enable it to do better in evolutionary terms. And the more an organism
has of each
of these capacities, the better it will do (e.g. the greater its
fitness).

So as evolution unfolds,
it will tend to favor increases in
these capacities across all life.As improvements
in these capacities are discovered, life will tend to evolve
directionally.Of
course, this trajectory will often be
masked by meandering, halting and back-tracking, particularly where the
process
that searches for improvements relies on blind trial and error.Furthermore, improvements
in these capacities
will be favored only when the advantages they provide outweigh their
cost.As a
consequence, directional change will
often stall until evolution discovers a cost/effective way of enhancing
the
capacities.

Two attributes that
increase as evolution proceeds are the
scale of cooperative organization, and evolvability (i.e. the ability
to evolve
successfully through the discovery of effective adaptations).As a result, the
advancement of evolution is
marked by greater interdependence and cooperation amongst living
processes, and
by improvement in the ability to respond effectively to adaptive
challenges.

Both of these attributes
have the potential to provide
evolutionary advantage to living processes across a wide range of
environments.This
is because they are
meta-adaptive capacities—they improve the ability to adapt in all
circumstances, although they are not themselves an adaptation to any
specific circumstance.

In particular, the larger
the scale of a cooperative organization,
the more resources commanded by the cooperative, the greater its power,
the greater
the impact of its actions, and therefore the wider the range of
environmental
challenges that it can meet successfully.And the greater the evolvability, the greater
the capacity to respond
effectively to any challenges.

For example, once
intelligent life evolves that is organized
cooperatively on a global scale, it will have the power and creativity
to
protect itself from asteroids that would otherwise collide with the
planet.These
devastating collisions would
be unavoidable to life that is less evolvable and smaller in scale, as
was the
case on Earth in the age of the dinosaurs.And left to their own devices, bacteria are
unlikely to survive the
engulfment of their solar system by a dying sun.

If living processes were to set out intentionally to develop
strategies that would enable them to succeed in future evolution, these
are attributes
that they would boost. Both are capacities
that conscious evolutionaries will intentionally attempt to enhance
amongst
life on Earth.

For a Kindle
Book that combines The Evolutionary
Manifesto with its companion article Strategies for Advancing
Evolution go to the book's page at Amazon here (US$1.99)

For an
easy-to-print and easy-to-circulate PDF version of the full Manifesto
go here(34 pages)

For
further technical justification of the evolutionary trend to increasing
cooperation (including references to relevant scientific publications)
see my book Evolution’s Arrow which is online here

Help to promote discussion of the
evolutionary worldviewFeedback
from those who read the Manifesto
indicates that whether or not they are prepared to embrace the new
evolutionary worldview immediately, they generally agree on one thing:
as a matter of urgency, the Manifesto should be
widely circulated and subject to extensive discussion and serious
consideration.You
can help to promote this debate and consideration by circulating copies
of the Manifesto
or links to this website as widely as possible. For example,
you could
email links to people who might be interested, put links on web sites,
in blogs, in comments on blogs and discussion groups, and so on.

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Strategies for Advancing Evolution

What
can intentional evolutionaries do to advance the evolutionary process?
A 24 page document 'Strategies for advancing evolution' is
online here